Classic Hit Academy – songs with numbers in the title –”19” by Paul Hardcastle

It was an ABC News television documentary called Vietnam Requiem that inspired British composer, musician, producer and multi-instrumentalist Paul Hardcastle to make this mix of music and spoken word about the effect of the Vietnam War on it’s young Veterans. The show provided not only the inspiration but a substantial part of the sound samples used by Paul Hardcastle in his 1985 track “19”.

In fact it was one of the first #1 hits to rely heavily on sampling. This caused problems with legal clearance. since there were no precedents it. Hardcastle ended up having to pay royalties to the narrator, documentary narrator Peter Thomas.